


Beyond His Reach

by lyrium_tattoo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, F/M, Masturbation, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Regret, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 01:03:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11002722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyrium_tattoo/pseuds/lyrium_tattoo
Summary: Cullen flew through the door to his office, whipped around and slammed it shut behind him. His fingers briefly fumbled with the bolt in the heavy door before he quickly strode to close and lock the remaining two. He exhaled heavily, face aflame, and let himself drop into his desk chair. With his mind’s eye on Inquisitor Adaar’s roving hands, he buried his burning face in his palms, desperately trying to ignore the tightness of his trousers.





	Beyond His Reach

Cullen flew through the door to his office, whipped around and slammed it shut behind him. His fingers briefly fumbled with the bolt in the heavy door before he quickly strode to close and lock the remaining two. He exhaled heavily, face aflame, and let himself drop into his desk chair. With his mind’s eye on Inquisitor Adaar’s roving hands, he buried his burning face in his palms, desperately trying to ignore the tightness of his trousers.

Asaaranda had a sparkle in her eyes, an ease in her manner, and a grin that could only be described as jaunty. For someone so tall and imposing of stature, she had a way with people that only Varric could rival. Better, he thought, as she’d taken no time at all in winning over Cassandra. Despite how they’d first come to know her, the Herald of Andraste had well and truly won over the people of the Inquisition. And even though she was Qunari, male and female heads alike would turn to watch her swaying hips rather than her towering height and curling horns as she passed.

He sighed again and wished, not for the first time, that he hadn’t turned her down back in Haven when she’d first approached him.

They were standing outside Haven’s walls among the troops when she asked him if he’d left anyone behind in Kirkwall, and he thought nothing of it. He liked to dwell on his time in the Free Marches as little as possible, and brushed off the question. She smirked and changed the conversation’s direction, asking about how he’d joined the templars. Cullen saw her sizing him up, and naively thought her to be assessing his worth as a warrior along with the rest of the infantry that trained around them. When she brought their conversation back around, by means of how strictly he kept to his vows, he stumbled through his rebuff without a thought beyond surprise.

There was a brief flash of disappointment in her eyes but her grin didn’t falter, and she moved on with their conversation without missing a stride, asking after his martial training as if that were where she’d been taking the conversation all along. At the time, he bought it, and began telling her about life as a templar, relieved for the easy out she’d given him. When she called him a model student they both laughed, and he savored the sound of her throaty chuckle.

He wanted to hear it now. He wanted to know what it sounded like, breathy against his ear-

He exhaled heavily and scratched at the back of his neck. His cock twitched, still ignored and tightly confined. He scanned and shuffled through the paperwork on his desk, searching for any distraction, and found a letter from Marquis Pellantaise about the Montilyet family crest. With a sigh he set it aside to pass on to Leliana in the morning.

Within weeks of the Inquisition’s arrival at Skyhold, Adaar’s romantic overtures to Josephine, and Josie’s blushing acceptance of them, were well and commonly known. He was relieved at first, and happy for both of them, not sharing in Leliana’s prickly suspicion. Who was he to judge where they found happiness? But he found himself enviously watching Adaar’s adoring gaze as it followed Josephine, and how she hung on their ambassador’s every word at the war table. He also noted Josephine casting amorous glances at Adaar as she trained in the yard each day. It was hard not to stare, but at least he had the excuse of overseeing the training of the Inquisition’s soldiers to explain his presence there.

Cullen found his eyes clinging to each swing of her arms as she punished the dummy in front of her with her two handed waster. She was a pinnacle of physical perfection, every muscle and movement honed to excel at her chosen path. The wooden post that supported it trembled beneath each strike, it’s creaking a testament to her strength. He marveled at the play of muscles in her shoulders as she swung the training sword, her thighs as she shifted her stance. He knew he was watching more often than he should.

That her chosen path was Champion relieved him more than he cared to admit. Before Josephine summoned the elite trainers to Skyhold, Cullen finally told Asaaranda the full truth of the templars abilities, and the lyrium price he still paid for using them. He had begun to doubt not only his choice to give up lyrium, but Cassandra’s assessment of him as well. When no one else could make him see sense, Adaar had been the one to reassure him, convincing him he’d made the right choice. She was more sympathetic than he thought she’d be, and when he expected to see pity in her eyes, there was only worry. He felt his heart catch in his chest, and knew he was in trouble.

When it came time for her to choose a specialization, he’d noted how she’d politely but effectively shunned the trainer from the templars.

At the Winter Palace Cullen had a ball of tension in his chest tighter than the suit he was stuffed into. His patience was worn to a fragile thread; one that grew yet thinner from the persistent attentions of a few flirtatious Orlesians. Halfway through the night he came to realise it wasn’t the attention that was bothering him, though. Adaar had just checked in with him as she made her way around the hall, and her easy manner had him briefly relaxed. A wink from her was all it took to get him smiling, and it certainly didn’t hurt that his suitors fell back a step when she looked down her nose at them. He didn’t want their attention, he wanted hers.

She turned to move on, and he wistfully watched her go. He didn’t expect her to still have feelings for him, certainly. And even if she did, he definitely didn’t expect her to leave Josephine because he’d suddenly gotten his act together. But he knew the air needed clearing. After his confession about his lyrium addiction, he felt closer to her than he thought to be wise, and had since kept her at arm's reach. She’d side-eyed him a few times because of it, though he only ever shrugged her questions off. Despite his trepidation, he resolved that the time had come; she deserved to know why he’d kept so strictly professional since then.

But then he rounded the corner from the hall to see them slow dancing and it was clear: Asaaranda and Josephine were in love. They held each other with easy comfort in the safety they’d found within each other, and he knew there was nothing for him to say on the matter.

And in that revelation, regret began to eat away at him. Why had he turned her down so thoughtlessly? He was baffled at himself, but the answer came readily. The Qunari in Kirkwall were all he’d known, prior to the Inquisitor. Their swift and vicious attempt at a takeover was a memory he wouldn’t soon forget. The idea of romancing one of them was something he’d never considered, and he hadn’t seen the Inquisitor as an individual then, just as a surprisingly charming Qunari. 

He quietly retreated, and left them to themselves. He should have been happy that they could find solace with each other in all the political madness that had become their lives. 

After a few days travel on horseback, they returned from the Winter Palace to Skyhold in the early afternoon. Cullen and Leliana had stayed late in the War Room that day discussing the new “emperor” of Orlais, and how the new _true_ ruler would influence him. He felt uneasy with the Inquisitor’s decision, and with his mind elsewhere he strode through the grand hall, set for his tower. Varric hailed him as he passed, and offered to share dinner, but Cullen declined with a vague excuse about being tired from the journey. He walked through Solas’ room beneath the library tower, giving the aloof apostate a nod as he took the door leading to the battlements. It was a familiar path that allowed him to bypass what any reasonable person would consider to be far too many stairs. What was unfamiliar was what he saw below.

She was with Josephine _right now,_ kissing her _right now._ He glanced down and saw them, pressed against each other in the shelter under the steps to the main hall. Adaar’s thick, powerful thigh pressed up hard in between Josephine’s legs, and Josephine balanced helplessly upon it, her mouth open to Adaar’s. He froze in place, stunned and unable to look away. When Asaaranda’s hand moved towards Josie’s breast, Cullen became aware of what he was doing, and fled.

They’d almost seen him, and they knew they’d almost been caught. Cullen heard Josephine’s startled gasp as his boot scuffed the stone in his hurried retreat, and when he heard their relieved giggles fading behind him, he knew he’d escaped unseen. Or had he? Perhaps they’d giggled at their embarrassed Commander? He couldn’t know for sure, and his face flushed hot in the cold of the mountain night.

The flush returned and he reenvisioned all he’d seen, every attempted distraction chased from his mind as it replayed again and again. Try as he might he couldn’t escape the vision of their display, of Asaaranda’s dominance. He ached to know how it would feel to be standing where Josephine was now.

With a groan and against his better sense, he pushed his chair back from his desk, and his hand slipped down the fabric of his trousers. He rubbed the heel of his palm along the base of his shaft and bit his lower lip, pressing teeth into his scar to suppress a whine.

Though he knew he shouldn’t, it was easy to imagine himself there in Josephine’s place, Adaar’s piercing stare holding him as effectively as any holding spell. There was an exhilaration in knowing they could easily be seen, and Maker help him, he wanted to be seen. He imagined her roughly shoving his shoulder up against the stone behind him, while palming the bulge in his trousers. It was easy to imagine feeling helpless, on his toes with his balls and the base of his stiff cock pressed hard against her thigh as she held him to the wall. He knew her power. She was almost casual about how she threw her weight around on the field to gain the advantage; between that and her height Cullen knew how easily she’d be able to hoist him up against the wall.

He pictured her grinning as she slipped a hand under the hem of his tunic and deftly unlaced his breeches. He felt powerless to resist her, this fantasy of her, and in his mind’s eye her grin widened as his cock bounced free and the garment slipped down his hips, the evidence of his lust exposed for her to take or reject as she chose.

He knew which he’d rather have, and there was no more hesitation in him as he pulled himself from his trousers. He shifted in the chair to shimmy his pants down his hips, and cupped and lifted his balls to free them from their constraint.

Cullen closed his eyes and gave into his fantasy, his hand matching what he wished Adaar would do to him. He groaned softly as his callused fingers, callused in the same way hers would be, trailed up and down his cock and down further to gently cup and massage his balls. He groaned as he savored his own touch. It had been ages since he’d taken himself in hand, ashamed of how his mind had so readily moved to Adaar, and he was already achingly hard from even such small attentions.

He moved his hand back up, fingertips brushing lightly up to the tip of his cock, then back down to grip around it. He tugged lightly and thumbed over the pearl of precum that had already formed there. He imagined her watching him, watching his cock in _her_ hand, with hungry attention. His body was tight as a bowstring in his chair, toes in his boots pressed hard into the stone floor of his office as hard as they would be in the dirt under the castle steps as she held him in her grip. It was only a few strokes before he began to feel the pressure build and his body’s tension increase.

Cullen had never imagined himself to be an exhibitionist, but it was hard to deny the excitement of the idea of being exposed in front of Adaar, and the whole courtyard, if they happened to look. Yet here he was, feeling the thrill moving down his spine and straight to his dripping cock as he thought of her taking him in hand and enthusiastically stroking him to completion where anyone could see him, helpless to her whim.

In light of the evening’s events, he shouldn’t have been surprised that his fantasy fell in line. He saw Josephine as he had been, walking along the parapet and looking down to see them. His pulse accelerated with shame and exhilaration, his envious heart thrilling at the thought of her seeing them together. He lifted his hips from the chair as he thrust into his fist, flaunting under her imagined gaze as Adaar, unaware of Josephine in this fantasy, stroked his bare cock. He gave himself long, measured strokes, fingers brushing against his balls as he reached down and forming a tight ring as they came back to rub under the head. He quickened his pace and his shaft grew even harder, the head of his thick cock swollen and purple as he came closer and closer to completion.

He arched his back, loving the idea of being caught, being seen completely at Adaar’s mercy. He wanted her to rule him, to own him, to control him, and for everyone to know and see. Cullen had never been so attracted to such strength and power as she possessed, and in this moment there was nothing more he wanted than to be possessed and dominated by it, by her. As he pictured her changing her grip from pinning his shoulder to holding his throat, he closed his eyes and came, ejaculate spurting onto his chest as he moaned loudly through his release.

As the speed of his heart subsided, he felt filthier than his stained tunic accounted for.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much barbex for being my beta and being so patient while i took entirely too long to finish this. working title was "shows up to the ship 2 1/2 years late w starbucks". i'm lyrium-tattoo on tumblr


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